Ken's Adventures

Great Divide Mountain Bike Route Day 41 & 42 & 43

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by

Ken Luken
in ,

Thursday, September 3rd, 53.3 miles and 2946 accumulated vertical feet up.

Great day for some mountain bike touring. We spent the early part of the day paralleling the Wind River Range in the North End of the Great Divide Basin. The Great Divide Basin in Wyoming is a Barren open Sagebrush country with vistas that appear endless. An additional dynamic has now been added to our trip, the lack of available water, all of us are now carrying about 4 liters of water and we are topping off at any opportunity.

We got lucky all day with nearly perfect riding conditions. Temps starting in the low 50’s and never getting over 70. No rain and by and large a tail wind or favorable cross winds. You already know we started out on the Lander Cutoff of the Oregon Trail and so the day’s learning evolved around the location of the Oregon Trail, South Pass and other Wyoming history— Mostly mining. We did stop in the historic town of South Pass for a quick walk around, and then down the road to historic and mostly empty Atlantic City Wyoming where we enjoyed taco Thursday in a local bar/restaurant/general store/town gathering place.

Tonight we are Wild Camping on the CDT (Continental Divide Trail) on the Banks of the Sweetwater River. I think we crossed the Continental Divide at least twice today and probably ran along the precise line of the divide for a few miles. Sadly the Continental Divide is not often marked along this Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.

This is actually from yesterday but the vistas are crazy here, and we believe we are standing on the Great Divide taking this Video
On the Lander Cutoff
Zoom to see Prong Deer, we see them often but they are difficult for me to get a good picture because as soon as they realize something is moving they run, usually along a ridge line
Just More desert
No end to desert riding in sight, we have food packed for 4 days and 3 nights
Wind River Range is still running along side of us
Beautiful sky all day
Bedtime reading, and we are again standing on the Continental Divide
Cool how Wyoming has preserved this town
We’re Here
Heart of South Pass City
Oregon trail went through town
In the South Pass town museum I found this very detailed model of the Carissa Mine
Opposite end of town
Carissa Mine Restored, you can take a tour here
Rolling into historic Atlantic City Wyoming
More Riding after lunch, our eatery is out there somewhere
More Desert in the afternoon
Most beautiful Wild Camping Spot of all time. It’s on the Sweetwater River and It’s on the CDT — we had a single woman through hiker come thru early in the AM.
Must bore you with a 2nd Picture of our overnight home

Friday, September 4th, 68.4 miles and 2749 accumulated vertical feet up. 1721 Route Miles to date and this is the 6th week complete👍

What a beautiful start to our Friday
Wild Horses, and I saw a very nice specimen of a Jack Rabbit (no pic)
California Trail — imprint still on floor of desert
Of the California Trail
Imprint of the Seminoe cutoff
Endless vistas of desert
Ok this is getting old — but it’s still beautiful and the weather continues to be amazing
Prong Deer
Scott starts a conversation with a guy in Pinedale while finishing up Breakfast at the hotel and this is the end result, he drops 3 gallons of drinking water off at a prearranged location along our route. This was so much appreciated you can’t imagine!!! 👏👏👏
Wild Camping again, free range cows all around and just a bit of a nuisance
Sunset at campsite at A&M Reservoir

Today it looks like we rode on the Continental Divide twice for a mile or so, but again not marked.

We did see one smallish Oil field with active wells and a small processing/storage facility.

The roads are not used much out here, we only saw 6 cars and 2 motorcycles the entire day.

Saturday, September 5th, 55.3 miles and 1373 accumulated vertical feet up.

Not much to say tonight because this is our 4th day of riding through the same Desert, and the weather is great except all day we fought a non favorable WIND, we needed to peddle even going downhill 😫🚴‍♂️

This is Cool
This is about it for the Continental Divide Basin of Wyoming
There was a sign
Bedtime reading

So tonight we are in a hotel in Rawlings, Wyoming. First Shower in 4 days, got real food: 2 Quarter Pounders with cheese, large fries, McFlurry, large Vanilla Shake, and plenty of water. We found a grocery store and stocked up and now it’s time to say Good Night, thanks for reading!

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